Quebec election: Liberals sow promises to protect farmers

In a speech to the provincial farmers' union, Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard vowed to continue to defend supply management in the dairy industry in NAFTA negotiations. Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS

Philippe Couillard says a re-elected Liberal government would help preserve the family farm by limiting land purchases by investment funds to 100 hectares a year.

The measure takes direct aim at Pangea Terres Agricoles, a firm that invests in agricultural land, setting up joint ventures with private farmers in which the partners pool their land with the aim of amassing at least 2,000 acres, much larger than a typical farm in Quebec.

The six-year-old company says it has created a new entrepreneurship model that gives farmers access to financial resources they wouldn’t have otherwise. But Quebec’s farmers’ union, the Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA), opposes the business model as a form of land-grabbing.

One of Pangea’s co-founders is billionaire Charles Sirois, a co-founder of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ).

In a speech Thursday at UPA’s headquarters in Longueuil, Couillard said if returned to power he would limit acquisitions by land-investment companies to protect family farms, so younger generations can continue in agriculture.

Limiting companies to acquiring 100 hectares a year would curb speculation on farmland, which drives up prices and property taxes for farmers, the Liberal leader said.

He denied the move was an attack against the rival CAQ.

“I’m speaking for farmers,” he said.

“I haven’t mentioned the name of any political adversary on this issue,” he added.

“If we really want to protect the family farm and ensure it’s passed to the next generation, we don’t need to ban these organizations but we do need to limit their activities,” he said.

Marie-Christine Éthier, a spokesperson for Pangea, said in an email that the company finds it “unfortunate that our (business) model is the subject of a debate that seems to be political, since the goal of Pangea is to develop agriculture in Quebec and to allow farmers to live well from it.”

Éthier said Quebec’s own agriculture department has said the company is fair to farmers, has a positive impact on rural areas and that there is no proof it is driving up the cost of farmland.

But Couillard said it was the farming milieu itself that demanded the government take action.

Couillard reiterated that he would continue to defend supply management in the dairy industry, a bone of contention in negotiations to renew the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

“There will be no compromise to this effect on our part. Our farmers are putting in too much effort and energy to let them down,” Couillard said in a speech to the UPA.

Kirk Jackson, a cattle and dairy farmer in St-Anicet, said if supply management is dismantled, he could not survive as a dairy farmer. Supply management is an agricultural policy that co-ordinates supply and demand in the Quebec dairy industry to ensure a decent return for farmers.

“When we’re up against these free trade talks, I shake in the knees morning, noon and night,” Jackson said.

The second-generation farmer said the Liberal government has done a generally good job on agriculture, but that Quebec farmers must deal with a lot more red tape than their counterparts in other provinces.

Couillard said a re-elected Liberal government would also adjust agricultural aid to take climate events into account, update Quebec’s green law protecting farmland, and revise the Farm Property Tax Credit Program.

On a visit to the Leduc dairy farm in Lochaber, 155 kilometres west of Montreal, Couillard demurred when owner Steve Leduc asked if he’d like to milk one of the prize-winning cows.

Later, Leduc, who is a fifth-generation farmer, showed Couillard a stool that had two of its legs sawed shorter than the others, so it couldn’t stand straight. He explained that the stool represented supply management.

Recent international trade deals have undermined supply management, so it is wobbly like the stool, and now its very existence is threatened by the NAFTA talks, Leduc said.

Questioned by reporters in Longueuil, Couillard also stood by a pilot project started in 2016 by his health minister, Gaétan Barrette, to help set benchmarks for the cost of surgeries. The pilot project has allowed some patients to undergo surgery in private clinics at provincial expense.

Liberal star candidate Gertrude Bourdon said in a radio interview Thursday that she was firmly opposed to having the government pay for surgeries in private clinics because the public system should be able to meet those needs.

Despite Bourdon’s statement, Couillard said the pilot project should continue, since its findings will help explain why surgeries cost more at some facilities than others. Couillard said his priority remains to provide Quebecers with the best possible care at the best possible price.

On Thursday night, at a rally near a historic mill in Wakefield, 35 kilometres north of Ottawa, Couillard promised a light rail in Gatineau and to extend Highway 50 between Gatineau and Mirabel.

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